


Tictok

by kerys



Series: Big Damn Verse: Ficlets [7]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 06:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerys/pseuds/kerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A recon mission goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tictok

Tictok inched further forward, half a step… another… one fist held up beside his head, warning his companions to stay put.  
  
Irregular shadows mottled all the visible world as shafts of green light illuminated motes of pollen drifting in the air, making the forest look like some alien terrain. He knew he’d heard something. He’d feel foolish if it turned out a deer or a hare, but he wouldn’t risk his companions on the chance that it was nothing more. His fist dropped, uncurling to cup around his ear a moment, letting everyone know why they were stopped, and he chanced a glance behind him, to catch each soldier passing the signal down the line, no one remarking on anything he’d missed.  
  
Easing his fist back up, he crept forward one more step, slowly lowering his rifle to ready position as he spotted the too-regular curve of a helmet in the foliage ahead. He brought the sight of his rifle to his eye, the signal that he’d spotted an enemy, and where. After a heartbeat, he slowly panned left and right, careful eyes picking out shapes that didn’t belong in the nebulous wilderness, pausing on each just long enough to show his people what he'd seen. Finally he opened his hand, thumb holding his middle finger down to announce eight enemy spotted. Thirty seconds he left his hand raised before dropping his arm to point back at the man on his left, he didn’t have to look at him. Just pointed where last he’d been, knowing he wouldn’t have moved an inch. _You_ , he pointed, then held up thumb, index finger, and middle finger before pointing again. _Three of you_. He lifted his open hand beside his head, moving it slightly from side to side. _Line formation_. Then he dropped his hand again, extending it to his side and waving them forward to where he wanted them, still on his left.  
  
They hadn’t expected the enemy here. The camp they were supposed to recon was miles off yet. This territory wasn’t even supposed to be populated. He silently mouthed a curse as he repeated the entire procedure with the men on his right, moving them into position. Seven to eight. With surprise. Oughta be a waltz, even if they hadn’t been invited to dance. For an instant, he wished the sarge was still alive, just so’s he could kill the man again for leaving him in charge. He didn’t want to be responsible for these kids. He wanted to run in shooting and worry about getting chewed out by higher-ups if he made it through the rain of bullets. He held his breath, trying to think like a leader, keeping his sights on the first helmet he’d spotted.  
  
“Pshhhht…” He could’ve leapt from his skin as one of the purple-bellies’ comm units spat static into the silence. “We’ve got hostiles on the ground in gamma sector… Pshhht… I repeat, hostiles on the ground. The enemy has been engaged…” He fired and the helmet jerked violently before dropping from sight. “Keep your eyes open out there.” The cacophony of battle erupted around him as the comm just kept rambling warnings rendered meaningless by reality.  
  
The next few minutes were an indecipherable chaos, terror and glee fighting for control of his guts as he raced ahead, hunched low and firing as if ammo weren’t a commodity. They liked to say that a bullet saved today is a enemy dead tomorrow. But an enemy killed today is still dead tomorrow, too. He liked dead enemies. The sooner the better. He could find more bullets.  
  
The thunder died down and Tictok found himself standing alone, in a forest gone tranquil once again. It was unnerving, how a place could change in the blink of an eye. He turned back, looking over the troops as they collected weapons and ammo from the fallen. Lynn, a fair-haired farm girl, tied a kerchief around the bicep of boy that looked like he could be from nowhere but Kerry. He was actually from Shadow, but got called Kerry none-the-less. He wasn’t bleeding badly, and it looked to be the only wound they’d taken.  
  
Tictok moved on, his face splitting into a grin as he lifting his hand again, index finger extended, arm moving to draw lazy circles in the air above his head. Everyone took the lazy for what it meant and finished what they were doing before making their way back to his side. He nodded a job well done to them all and had just turned to get moving again when they heard the roaring squeal of old hovercraft racing over uneven ground. The earlier sounds of their movement must have been dampened by the curtain of trees. They were approaching from the side, at an angle that didn't sound like it bring them directly to the retreating indies. He whistled shrilly to break the panic, holding his hand before him, palm down, and pushing towards the ground. Everyone dropped on command, he followed suit, gesturing them all back the way they’d come. Dragging his duffle off his back, he quickly prepped a few charges as the skiffs grew deafeningly near.  
  
As his men belly-crawled away, he set his charges and staggered to his feet as if injured. Looking back at the vehicles he feigned shock and turned to run from them, perpendicular to his retreating men. The hovercraft pilots shouted back and forth, meaningless sound to him, unknowable over the pained cries of their engines. They took chase. It was all that mattered, though if his timing was off, it wouldn’t matter for long. He kept the detonator concealed in one hand as he ran unsteadily, staggering worse each time he looked back at their progress. A couple of shots chased him, followed by a few more, but they weren’t shooting to kill. They aimed for his moving feet from their racing vehicles. And they missed. He imagined that they did so with intent, playing with him. Dirt spat up beside and behind him as bullets tore the turf. He grinned wildly and hoped that it looked like anything else. Finally, they approached the charges, and he hit the detonator.  
  
The blast was unimpressive, but effective. The nose of one skiff shot skyward, so that it seemed to stand on end as the other careened into it. With their own fuel added to the mix, both vehicles exploded in a brief plume of fire. Tictok took a minute to sink to the ground, giggling soundlessly even as he struggled to breathe. The minute over, he lurched to his feet and took off after his men. Vehicles meant more support personnel. They were probably a ways off yet, or else the hovercraft would’ve made an appearance during the firefight, but he didn’t want to count on the fact that the two heaps of slag were the only vehicles in the deployment.  
  
He caught up with the rest, exchanging grins and back-slaps all around. They rose, but kept low, making their winding way back to the bridge that they’d built the day before. An hour later, as they trudged through waist high grass, with the bridged canyon a mere streak in the distance, that dreaded, distant hum started up again. The hovercraft would be faster over the even ground, maneuver better without the trees. He broke his silence, croaking out, “Run!” as loud as he could: a ragged bark of an order.  
  
A shot rang out and Kerry crumbled to the soil. Tictok spun back, barely able to make out people on the distant skiff, but he saw the flash of light before the helmet was ripped from his head, a full second before he heard the gun’s rapport. _Sniper?! Oh, we're humped!_ He sprang forward, dragging Kerry over his shoulders and pulling the bridge’s remote timer from a pocket on his cargoes. He turned back and began loping for the bridge, hunched low and desperately punching keys on the timer. He didn’t build a bridge that he couldn’t burn on a whim. HQ disliked the amount of ordnance he went through, but they kept sending more. When they stopped, he figured he’d have to run raids on the purple-bellies a bit more often.  
  
Each step nearly brought him to his knees, between the tangling grasses, Kerry’s solid weight, and the distraction of his timer. He heard another rapport and braced for impact, racing on when it didn’t come. Another shot had him sprawled on his face, uncertain how bad he was hit, but lurching to his feet with the redhead once more. The timer was gone. But the explosives were set. All he had to do was make it across. He ran. Kerry was an anchor, dragging him back, holding him to the clutching earth, but he hauled the boy higher and ran faster, his tongue clicking a “tick-tock” in cadence to the timer in his head, more regular than the turnin’ of any world. His heels hit the unforgiving wood of the bridge, and he nearly fell again, but he struggled upright and raced on, hearing the skiff roar behind him. Another shot and he spun, blinded by sudden pain in his shoulder, but keeping his feet and finally making it across the bridge. He slumped to the ground a dozen paces distant, exhaustion and agony settled on his features like defeat, and the faces in the skiff lit up at the sight.  
  
He watched their approach. He watched their joy. And finally, he smiled, clicking away as he counted down in his head, _6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…_ The bridge blew with a low _whumph_ and cloud of dust, debris raining down into the distance. The skiff hadn’t reached it yet, but they were tearing on too fast to stop. The pilot jerked the wheel to the side, and the hovercraft turned on a dime, but momentum wouldn’t be stopped so easily. They slid through the air until there was no ground beneath their thrusters to keep them in the sky. They dropped sideways into the chasm, and Tictok watched them tumble from their vehicle before they fell from view.  
  
He turned to Kerry and slapped the boy’s white face with no response but the screaming protest of his own shoulder and a tightness is his chest. With a miserable sigh, he felt beneath the kid’s jaw for a pulse. He sat there a long moment, refusing to pull his fingers away, sure that he’d just missed it.  
  
Lynn walked up, eyes grim and bright with unshed tears, “Tictok? He’s gone. Come on. You’re hit.”  
  
He looked down at his blood-soaked arm and the world dimmed and danced. He shook his head and lay back as Leah and Raven probed the hole in his shoulder. Eventually a sharp whistle stopped their efforts to remove the bullet, and a determined glare got the wound quickly cleaned and bandaged. He clambered to his feet after that, and was beginning to pull his coat back on when Raven noticed fresh blood among the rust and clots on his back.  
  
“Boss?” The kid never had used a rank. “I, uh… think your shoulder’s not the problem.” Tictok turned back to look at the white-haired boy with the earnest black eyes, raising an eloquent eyebrow. “Uh… you gotta hole in your back, boss.”  
  
He dropped his coat and slumped back into a sitting position, hunched over his knees as they cleaned the wound. It was high, just to the left of his spine, and somehow didn’t appear to have hit anything important. He felt a tightness when he breathed deep, but nothing more. He let them swathe him in bandages with half his unit watching, as he and the other half watched the horizon on the far side of the canyon, waiting for the enemy to reappear as they tended his wounds.  
  
It occurred to him that the bullet in his chest had killed Kerry. That it would’ve killed him, if he hadn’t been hauling the boy. He didn’t know what to make of it. But he planned to climb down in that canyon tomorrow and make gorram sure that the mutherruttin’ sniper was dead.


End file.
